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Ponca City, We love you writes "The Telegraph reports that men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive. This leads to speculation that men use up so much of their brain function or 'cognitive resources' trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks. Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived. Researchers recruited 40 male heterosexual students and had each one perform a standard memory test. The volunteers then spent seven minutes chatting to male or female members of the research team before repeating the test. The results showed that men were slower and less accurate after trying to impress the women. The more they fancied them, the worse their score."

Well, yes, the blood moves. It's also often about a massive chemical reaction in your brain. I have a semi-rare condition where pheromones are very obvious to me. Some girls actually can make my head hurt, though I haven't had such reactions since I turned about 40.

Being able to sense the drug incoming, I was able to examine my reaction over the years. My heart raced, my chest tightened, and I longed for whichever girl I saw next. Often, I'd get hit with it from behind, before I saw any girl. I would be incapable of thinking of anything else but the girl who brought this to me. It takes a while for that to wash out of your system. A few hours later, I'd often think, "What the hell was I so enraptured about? She's nothing special."

All humans have a veromonasal organ. (Pheromone sensor in the nose.) A very, very small percentage of humans have active nerve connections to the veromonasal organ, while most do not. (Probably a recessive trait.) Though there have been some studies which suggest that the veromonasal organ sets off chemical signals to the brain, even in those individuals with no direct nerve connection to it.

Now, you know that whole "chemistry" thing, where some people strike you
as attractive and some just... don't? That's in part determined by the
differences between your immune systems.

That works because if the genes that code for your major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
are similar to the other person's, you'll tend to find them less attractive
than otherwise, and vice-versa. Why mate with someone who's immune to the
same stuff you are? Your offspring won't have any survival advantage.
Instead, evolution has selected for creatures that mate with partners whose
immune systems are incompatible. Either because both parents tend to be
unlikely to be sick at the same time, ensuring the presence of at least one
caregiver. Or because some the offspring of such pairings get a mix of
genes that features the the best bits of both parents. (Offspring that
get the worst of both parents tend not to survive, but that's a problem
for individuals, not the species.)

Love is just a chemical reaction in your brain, anyway. It's not magical, or sacred, or even very special. It's your brain recognizing the opportunity to mate with someone who matches your particular template for an ideal partner (usually based on early experiences, parents, and other external factors), and shooting you up with natural drugs to make you feel like it's way more than it really is.

Also interestingly - a woman on the pill has less chance of making the correct chemical compatability choice. The pill mimics pregnancy and during pregnancy a woman is more attracted to genetically similar people (ie family members who will look after her). I've read the fact that so many couples meet while she's on the pill cited as a possible factor in the rise of infertility.

Love is just a chemical reaction in your brain, anyway. It's not magical, or sacred, or even very special.

Are you joking? You don't find that process incredible? What's a good piece of music? Just waves transmitted through the air? What's the DNA? Just arrangements of atoms? The Princess Bride? Just a sequence of words? Or perhaps I should ask you whether a wood is just a bunch of trees. You seriously need to re-consider what the word "just" means.

I'd ask you what your criteria for judging something's value is as "natural drugs to make you feel like it's way more than it is" implies how you feel about something is not a valid method of assessing how important something is to you. Except that the natural alternative criteria is intellectual analysis and I don't think you've intellectually considered the perpetuation of the species via the incredibly complex yet elegant combination and multiplication of the DNA of separate organisms into new growing and developing organisms if you dismiss it as 'nothing very special'.

This study seems like a barely concealed reason to bring attractive women into the lab. In fact I would wager that this is the first time the line "Want to come to my lab for some 'test'?" has actually worked.

I think Peggy Bundy said it best: "...nature played a cruel joke on the men. It gave them a source of pleasure, but in order for it to work, blood has to leave the brain. And it leaves them confused, and disoriented, and eager to enter into negotiations."

It's embarrassing is what it is, to be turned into a drooling moron and then realise later just how stupid you sounded.

Anecdote is not, nor ever will be, the singular of "data". Sure, everyone may know this. Sure, the outcome may seem obvious to everyone. However, it is not empirical fact until it is studied and established as such. How many common sense "truths" have turned out to be not so true when properly analyzed over the history of human scientific endeavor? In the case of this study, anecdote and assumption about human behavior has now become data, and can be used as such in psychology and sociology to continue to study and describe how and why we are the way we are.

Now that we have established the phenomenon (doot dooo do-do-doot) as data, perhaps we can look into the actual physiological mechanisms which control it.

I would think that above all else, the type of people who read a "news for nerds" site would appreciate research for research sake.:-/

The whole study doesn't seem very scientific to me. It seems just as likely to me that, for example, a potential social sexual situation causes a rise in anxiety, which causes the males to do less well in a test. Perhaps the presence of an animal which the subject finds intimidating, or a rusty container supposedly dangerous chemicals would produce a similar result?

Evolution, my friend. If a reproductively desirable female doesn't arouse you, yourgenes have come to the end of their otherwise long and successful run.

I think you misunderstand what I meant by "physiological mechanisms". Just saying "evolution, my friend" does not explain anything about what is happening in the brain and body at the cellular and molecular level. Yes, we know that females arouse us. This study suggests data that brain processing for other things is inhibited. Now, what I am curious about at least, it would be interesting to know how and where (in the brain) and by what physiological mechanisms the processing is being shunted.

There is more to understanding biology than just saying, "Oh that's naturally evolved behavior." Some of us want to know exactly what has evolved and been selected for at the cellular and subcellular level.

Durrr... sorry to double comment on the same post, but I wanted to address this.

Some things count as so obvious as to not require scientific inquiry. Hot women give get males wood. You don't needto publish this to claim it, end of story.

Yes, and for centuries it was so obvious that no scientific scrutiny was required that the sun went around the earth, not the other way around. It was also completely obvious that a heavier object would fall faster than a lighter object. It was also obvious that things would get cold because the cold of the surroundings would flow into them. It was also so obvious that time passes at a constant rate, regardless of our perceptions and reference frames. It was also so obvious that humans are the only organisms to experience emotion and pain.

Obviously there are a great many things that are so obvious as to not require scientific inquiry.

Point being, a great many things are so obvious. A great many of those obvious things also turn out to be correct in light of empirical data. However, we are not allowed to treat those scientifically and draw scientific conclusions from them until they are established as empirical data. This is one of the fundamental requirements for science, and I would think people on a "news for nerds" site would get that. Taking the obvious for granted as true is exactly the kind of mentality that brings about pseudoscience. Science requires empiricism, even for the bleedingly obvious.

I used to get tongue-tied thinking I was unworthy of this gorgeous woman & becoming nervous & basically being an idiot. But now with advancing age I realize Beauty is only transitory. Today's "hottie" will probably be a "fatty" by the time she's 30 or 40 (see Pierce Brosnan's wife as an excellent example).*

In other words, they all get ugly eventually, just like me. So that gives me confidence.

This viewpoint is shortsighted to the max. Yes, many women who "had it" in their younger years fail to uphold their appearance and lose that edge. So do men; in fact, they usually lose it faster. (Yeah...ever notice those 20-something guys that bulk up for the chicks? Those guys are usually fat and balding in their 30s.)

On the other hand, I've seen some people in their 30s or approaching 40s that look frozen at 25. Most of those folks are very attractive, but the dfference between them and their peers is that they knew that their bodies were something that needs maintenance to keep looking and working good.

And maintenance doesn't mean a small pizza pie at 8pm, followed by beer and TV. (That seems to be commonplace in my "college" town...which is really an extension of NYC.)

yes and no. it isn't just the maintenance, but it is also a random selection of genes too. Some people age gracefully, as they don't push them selves to hard. Those who party hard every night while in their 20's age faster than those who party occasionally, don't over work themselves, and relax.

It is stress. too much of anything is bad, even parties. So relax, take a weekend and don't party. By the time your thirty your body will be in better shape than those who either work themselves to death, or part

I reviewed your google link, and it appears that it's just ONE study that showed these unusual results.

That's not enough to throw-out the literally millions of other studies which show being overweight is bad. QUOTE: "It's just rubbish," said Walter Willett, the professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight." Such slightly-overweight patients may simply have deeper bodily reserves t

I deeply apologize, but I have to be honest. I'd rather do one of those "Real Dolls" than do Pierce Brosnan's morbidly-obese wife - and while this is a free country, and if you want to commit suicide that's your choice, there is absolutely no way you can justify any of these as an "intelligent" choice. HERE'S THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH:

- Smoking is bad and destroys the lungs, causes high blood pressure, and premature skin aging

- Drinking is bad and destroys the liver, the kidney, causes high blood pressure, an

Any male, twenty or over and somewhat attractive, who has ever had to spend time around high school girls can tell you that they get just as stupid around guys they think are hot. We just don't notice when it's women our age 'cause we're too busy trying to think of how we can get in their pants, the same as they are.

Any male, twenty or over and somewhat attractive, who has ever had to spend time around high school girls can tell you that they get just as stupid around guys they think are hot.

uh... thing is, with girls, it's often an act. Women are much better at deception than men, and they're smart enough to know that stupidity is a turn on for guys... so their feigned stupidity fuels our stupidity, which lets them know it's working, and they can be even bolder in their feigned stupidity... it's a vicious feedback loop when it works right.

We'd be wise to consider the words of the great philosopher Steven Wright, who said, "I never really believe what women tell me."

What are the alternatives then? Enter an eternal state of depression and never recover? Turn into an outcast and never interact with women again? What if your spouse dies - will you be alone for the rest of your life to prove that it was true love?

I don't think that the "degree of recoverability" is a good metric for the "quality o

Why not give the memory test during the chatting session to see what happens to cognitive function then? I'd be interested to see if men make the same number of mistakes if the test somehow ties into the whole 'impressing women' deal. Then again, I'd be interested to see how the women do in the same situation. I know a lot of women who dumb themselves down in the presence of a man they're interested in because they believe that men are intimidated by smart women.

This leads to speculation that men use up so much of their brain function or 'cognitive resources' trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.

How about the even more simple explanation of just being distracted by the beautiful woman and imagining her naked with her legs wrapped around you is taking up all of your resources? "Trying to impress" doesn't need to come into it at all (and likely doesn't because usually having your mind so completely occupied that you become a dumbass doesn't really impress people), and seems like a stretch of a conclusion to come up with. Far more likely that thought of sex have simply completely taken over the brain and body, as they so often do..

Like the old joke says, men have a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to operate one at a time.;)

Don't forget having to say to yourself over and over: "Dontlookathertits. Dontlookathertits. Dontlookathertits. Dontlookathertits..." You spend so much time trying to not get slapped that you miss out on half the conversation.

You're both missing the point. Of course they dress that way to attract attention, it's just that the attention they want isn't from YOU. If you watch the whole girl-drama thing in it's entirely you'd see something like this:

awkwardNerd: Hi really-hot-chick, how are you today?really-hot-chick: Oh my GOD! Are you looking at my chest? You pervert! My eyes are up here!awkwardNerd: I...um, no, I....gah. (awkwardNerd retreats against the onslaught of really-hot-chick's righteous fury)22 seconds later:muscle-guy-fratboy: Hey really-hot-chick, look at you! Niiiiiiiiiice!really-hot-chick: awwe, muscle-guy-fratboy, you big jerk (said with a smile and a forward-lean exposing even more cleavage)

They want to be noticed, they're just not always happy with who notices them.....

How about the even more simple explanation of just being distracted by the beautiful woman and imagining her naked with her legs wrapped around you is taking up all of your resources?
Well, I guess that would be the problem then. Perhaps if the men actually concentrated on having a conversation with the lady instead of trying to imagine them naked, then they would actual increase their chances of seeing her naked. I mean, come on, there is plenty of opportunity for imagining her naked later when she's not

If you wanna be happyFor the rest of your life,Never make a pretty woman your wife,So from my personal point of view,Get an ugly girl to marry you.

A pretty woman makes her husband look smallAnd very often causes his downfall.As soon as he marries herThen she starts to doThe things that will break his heart.But if you make an ugly woman your wife,You'll be happy for the rest of your life,An ugly woman cooks her meals on time,She'll always give you peace of mind.

If you wanna be happyFor the rest of your life,Never make a pretty woman your wife,So from my personal point of view,Get an ugly girl to marry you.

Don't let your friends sayYou have no taste,Go ahead and marry anyway,Though her face is ugly,Her eyes don't match,Take it from me she's a better catch.

If you wanna be happyFor the rest of your life,Never make a pretty woman your wife,So from my personal point of view,Get an ugly girl to marry you.

Researchers recruited 40 male heterosexual students and had each one perform a standard memory test.

I have to wonder why the researchers didn't expand this theory to include homosexuals, bisexuals, or asexuals -- before publishing results claiming every man out there can be rendered temporarily stupid by an attractive woman. I smell a rat -- had they done this and the results turned out differently, they'd have to explain why this effect only happens to heterosexual men, or they'd have evidence of a neurological basis for attraction that isn't tied to gender. Neither conclusion would make them popular with the people funding the study. I don't know what this is, but it isn't science -- at least not the kind I grew up with.

It's perfectly valid if they don't claim it generalizes past the confines of the experiment. Of course the/. headline is then inaccurate, but it's not like that doesn't happen anyway. The problem is that there are thousands of variables that can affect an experiment, and you can't test them all in one go. What about testosterone level? Time since last having sex? Relationship status? Heterosexuals account for roughly 90% of the population, which makes them a reasonable group of test subjects for an experiment.

That said, I'd be extremely interested to see a similar study that takes sexual preference into account. Even more interesting would be to study transsexuals whose mind and body disagree on sex; as you might find that straight FTMs exhibit the same behavior as the heterosexual males, despite having female bodies themselves.

Playing devils advocate (here agreeing with you I guess), don't forget that not everyone can be cleanly lumped into those four bins of preference, you insensitive clod!;)

Actually heterosexuals account for 98% of the population (the other 2% are homosexual {about 1%} and bisexual {about 1%}). Even the most liberal (I'm using that word statistically) estimates place homosexuals + bisexuals at no more than 5% of the population. The old 10% number came from the Kinsey reports and has not been verified since that time. Anyway, just a little FYI.

That said, I'd be extremely interested to see a similar study that takes sexual preference into account. Even more interesting would be to study transsexuals whose mind and body disagree on sex; as you might find that straight FTMs exhibit the same behavior as the heterosexual males, despite having female bodies themselves.

First, kudos for your good job on the terminology. Meanwhile, I know, I know, anecdote != data, but thought two things might be relevant.

First, the This American Life episode Testosterone [thisamericanlife.org]. Act Two is about an FTM man, who talks about his experiences on testosterone and how it's changed his views on behavior. Specifically, he describes how difficult he's found it to not ogle women even though he knows how inappropriate and potentially hurtful it can be. Obviously, it's only one trans man, so it's not exactly a scientific study. Likewise, I've heard from some trans men I know that their experiences don't match the This American Life story and they're not thrilled with it being mentioned as a representative experience. (As, I guess, I'm doing right now. Whoops.)

Second, as a trans woman who is attracted to women, I've had an interesting experience with perceiving other women since I've gone on hormones. (Right now there are a number of/.ers wondering whether they're supposed to be fantasizing about some hot lesbian action or disgusted because one of the women still has a penis...)

I've heard estrogen described as something which lowers filters, and I think that's a pretty accurate way of putting it. My emotions have been cranked up a notch since going on estrogen. Now, the expected/obvious part of that has been that I cry easier, but the opposite is true as well - I laugh easier. Relate that to sex and sexuality, and I've definitely felt like I've had just as much trouble keeping eye contact now as when I was flooded with testosterone when I was in my early teens.

I'd be curious as well to see a more broad study comparing responses of different populations: every combination of transsexual and cissexual (that is, not transsexual), straight, bi, and gay. Does a hormonally-female transsexual such as my self have different responses than a cissexual lesbian? Or a straight woman? Or a transsexual man? How do gender identity and sexuality (no to mention hormones) change the effects of focusing on a desirable sex partner?

Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived.

Its not that he forgot. He was trying to figure out a way to say, "In my mom's basement" and still seem cool.

If an attractive woman approaches a/.er does he become stupid? (O.k. exclude the obvious Apple fanboys, because I'm not sure if an attractive guy just make those guys stupid or if they just stay gay.) Now, does he have the ability to access/. afterwards? If he has sex with her, does he lose his account?
If he has a 4 digit ID, does that mean he is immune, or just repulsive to attractive women?

One time, a group of us guys were at the grocery store buying some beer. I was having a conversation with one of my friends at the checkout counter as I saw a really, really, hot girl. My eyes were attached to her and couldn't let go. I was able to keep up with the conversation despite not looking at my friend.

He then asked "Are you really paying attention or are you just looking at that hot chick?"I replied, "No, I'm paying attention. I'm like a dual-core processor. One is for our conversation and the other is right now on the girl"Then my other friend said, "I am dual-core as well. But both cores are hung on that girl. "

Could women possibly misinterperate general lower mental function as being a response to their attractivness rather than the fact the guy is a stupid jerk, thus overestimating the intellegence of a potential mate, explaining finally why all the dumb a-holes out there get the hot girls before we do?

You might want to study whether the sun is bright or if the sky is blue.

FWIW I'm not sure that it's always "if you're trying to impress them" or even due to sexual urges - I know there have been times when I've been introduced to some exceptionally attractive woman, and it's like my mind has just shut off (and no, I don't mean that something else has switched on!). It's as if she has this thought dampening field and I'm stuck in it, just based on proximity and the fact that she's paying some level of attention to me.

But of course that's never happened since I've been married, because I don't even notice other women... right honey?

Both genders are equally susceptible to the effects of hormones overriding their more rational thought processes. Our limbic system, (limbic I've recently been told is now a deprecated term to describe to describe our motivational systems) flush our more rational processes. What has become more apparent is that our wet core is necessary to our rational decision making no matter how we might like it to be otherwise. Women are just as hormonally driven as men and the study, perhaps unintentionally, perpetuates gender stereotyping and myth making that suggests the horned, male ego is pushing the agenda. It's a mark of cultivation and high intelligence that our libido can't cloud our objectivity. The female psyche may not be the eternal mystery to men that our mythology suggests although there are deep distinctive traits. I've been married and, if you count co-habitations as periods of 6 months or longer, then I've lived with 7 women. Although women, as a (stereo) type, might not count 6 months as a long term cohabitation and might just see it as typical of the male willingness to say anything and do anything just to get laid 2 or 3 times a day. In my experience, if emotions engendered by attractive, potential sex partners can inhibit our higher reasoning faculty, then emotions and drugs are devastating. Personally I've found the drunker I get the more attractive women find me. This effect is more pronounced if I'm alone on a bar stool and two or more attractive women are near by. Inevitably, as I nurse one drink after another, and glance their way, sooner or later, one or more return my interested looks and an uncontrolled giggle will escape. That's when I know they're attracted to me. Of course that kind of attention from beautiful women is unsettling and I usually down a few more quick drinks just to put things in perspective. It's then they can't seem to stop staring at me, and, just about then, the giggling stops and things get serious. I'm pretty sure their upset looks reflect a conflict among them as to which one will leave with me. Although I've never been able to verify my guess because about then one or all of them will ask the bartender to see me out. I take this as a consensus on their part that if one of them can't have me then, in the name of friendship, they'll jointly and severally forego my company. I usually leave peacefully not wanting to destroy any close friendships.

Guys who are able to maintain their cool and not lose themselves when around hot girls are the ones that can actually land them. If you can figure out how to do this you put yourself on top and demonstrate to women that you are something special, selecting yourself out from the crowd. I highly recommend it.

Anybody that has ever been to a strip club could tell you that attractive women make men (and some women too) stupid! In fact, I believe their entire business model is predicated on that phenomenon! Serving them alcohol doesn't make 'em any smarter either.

Yeah, what was the car ad in that old Dudley Moore movie "Jaguar-for men who want handjobs from strange women" or something like that? Anyway I bet the reason this is is because we guys are too busy trying not to trip over our own feet and trying not look like a doofus to have any braincells left over for complex apps.

I know that when I first met my GF trying to talk her through a PC problem was an exercise in futility, as i just didn't have enough spare brain capacity to not trip over my own tongue PLUS keep the steps to fix the problem in my head PLUS translate tech speak into a language that she could understand. Now that we have been going out for awhile I don't have that problem anymore, except for her telling me occasionally "translation Mr Spock, because I don't think that last bit was actually English". Girls don't have that problem because they have more choices. Like that old joke "All girls are psychic because they know before the date even starts whether or not you are gonna get laid". The finer the girl, the more picky she can be, therefor the more laid back she can be when dealing with us.

I must say, I'm a big fan of the Royal Enfields. Any bike that can be repaired by an illiterate indian village blacksmith using nothing but a hammer and a hacksaw is +1 win in my books.

There was a cool Enfield trick that we learned last time we were in India; if you can't start your bike on a cold dewy morning, just take out the spark plug, pour a little bit of petrol into the chamber, put spark plug back in, and bang, it starts first kick:)

The guy who taught it to us used the same trick in the Israeli Defence Force to start tanks in the desert.

For the record, that's how I've always started my rototiller and mower (both old and miserable.) I thought it was a pretty well-known trick.

Here's another trick that's a little weirder. When you're adjusting the mixture, instead of trying to listen to the engine RPM, look at the exhaust. More to the point, look at the shadow of the exhaust in bright sunlight. It's way, *way* more sensitive. Adjust it until you can't see opacity -- you can barely see the exhaust's shadow, at which point you're a littl

There got be an iPhone app for that! Wait, actually I had started to spec one...

That is a tremendously appropriate response for a geek. But as a rule, we must observe genuine girl-people in the wild if we are to trust our data. They're similar to people, but they're generally softer, shaped differently and their heads are rather oddly wired. Image resolution is actually much better with a non virtual contact.

(Please, oh FSM, please do not let this fall into the hands of my wife and daughters...)